I really don't like myself right now. I don't like the fact that I get these ridiculous idea's in my head, and then force myself, my husband, and my children to be miserable. This food budgeting thing is for the birds. I really don't like it. At all.
This whole thing, despite my grumpiness, has been a real eye opener for me. This week has been hard in some ways and easier than in others. (It has been harder because I have had to plan meals very carefully, but easier because I have been able to be more creative than I thought I would in filling our bellies.) My cupboards, which were pretty full prior to this experiment, are now bordering on empty. We are down to the bare bones of our food supply and my instinct is to want to run to the store and fill them up again. Instead I am scrounging up food and we are eating stuff we normally would have left to rot or spoil. Our fruit basket is empty for the first time in for as long as I can remember, but this does not make me sad because I know that it is empty because we have eaten everything. Usually there are one or two pieces of fruit that end up in the compost pile because we have let them rot. I am looking forward to Saturday so much so that I can replenish the fruit basket. I have never craved fruit like I do right now. To have a grape or an apple would be glorious....
I went through the refrigerator today and came up with some apple sauce, a cheese stick, and some pepperoni that I did not know was in there. These things will be eaten today and tomorrow I am sure. If we had not been working so hard to budget and take a look at how much we consume (or in some cases don't consume, but rather waste) these things would have been forgotten about beyond their expiration date and then thrown away.
I have a bin filled with walnuts, almonds, sunflower seeds, and pistachios that have been sitting in the cupboard for a while abandoned for things such as chips and crackers in days gone past, but now getting new attention from the kids and myself as there are no other easy treat choices.
I have made more items from scratch this week than any other week. Sandwich bread (I have made twice), pancakes, waffles, rice crispie treats, and pizza crust are just some of the things I have made. We have eaten through a 2 lb bag of carrots and are working our way through a 3 lb bag of carrots as we speak. Our garden tomatoes have been eaten along with some green beans. I have planted new lettuce in hopes to save money since we love eating salad in this house. (Our old lettuce plants have gotten pummeled in a hail storm and then a pretty bad rain storm.)
Eating on a budget has simplified what we eat. We have less choices which, in our case this week, has left us making better food choices. We ran out of our allotted food budget yesterday when I went to buy butter. Because I bought Organic Valley butter it cost me the last $6 that I had. But it is important to me that the kids have organic dairy, so the sacrifice was worth it me, but I couldn't help but think of all of the other items I could have purchased instead of the butter.
Month to date we have spent the following on groceries:
$7.26 Subway (for Bob's dinner one night)
$36.34 Walmart (Not sure for what.)
$11.90 Papa John's (We had a coupon for a free large pizza, so we were able to get an x-large pizza and a large for the price shown.)
$80.00 Weekly Budget
**I had spent the first 3 line items prior to being convicted to subject our family to a strict food budget this month. I will still include them in my $522 dollar amount though because I really want to challenge myself to see if I can stick to the amount set out by me for the month of July.**
This means that I have spent : $135.50 on groceries to date.
Which means I have: $386.50 left for the month of July.
The amount I am trying to spend per day is about: $16.83
Since today is the 9th I am under budget by about: $16.04
I think that a big challenge for me will be trying to get through next week on a limited budget. By the time I shop on Saturday I will have nothing left in the cupboards to fall back on and I will have to fill my kitchen with a week's worth of food on about $120.00. That is going to be really, really hard for me.
I know that by trying to cut back on our groceries we will not only be saving money for our family, but it will help develop a compassion for those who truly have nothing else to fall back on. I know that achieving this goal will not be easy, and I will probably grump and grouse from time to time in this space, but this whole experiment will truly be worth it in the end.
No comments:
Post a Comment